“Gong-fu”: daily, regular practice, with sincerity, concentration and intelligent interpretation; faith in oneself and in the instructor. The result: creative, sincere; the technique has been adequately interpreted and accepted.
Now, I ask you, if I were to ask someone who knows nothing
about Wu Shu to come and grade your Wu Shu, and then you pass and receive a “Black Belt”
… do you treasure the "title"? or does it mean anything to you? why? what is the “Real
Thing”? To use the Art and to love the Art are two different matters.
Use
the Art as a means: you receive measure for measure.
Love the Art as a goal: then enduring wonders unfold ahead without limit.
Wu Shu masters discriminate between these two types of pupil when they
teach.
You might say someone’s form and movement look alright to me
but they don’t practice daily, regularly. You can’t see, but I can: only external form
and skill, but there is no gong-fu. Therefore the unfolding wonders can never
be revealed to an unfaithful one, even if I explain the same thing to you all.
The more you have, the more you see.
The Chinese ideal Wu Shu founders were either monks or Daoists …
why? One explanation is this: because Wu Shu recognises concentration,
physically and mentally, in order to reach its highest attainment which is the
finest sensitivity of the total person – body, mind and spirit. Anything which
hinders this development and growth must be rejected. This rejection does not
come under any restriction of law, or moral or religious cult, but by the urge
of inner liberation. Therefore this new impulse causes a new character to
emerge – body, mind and spirit. This is Transcendental Art.
Finally, let us remember that any Art must aim at Excellence
but the Wu Shu Artist lives a well-balanced, ordinary life, according to the
Chinese concept. They are neither eccentric nor a superman, but an ordinary
person among the crowd. Yet they live a full life, and wonders unfold daily in
their Wu Shu pursuit.
